


Eros, and Other Things Felt

by haphephobiaisfun



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: After the Armageddon that wasn’t, Gen, relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-07 16:59:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20820707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haphephobiaisfun/pseuds/haphephobiaisfun
Summary: Aziraphale has new feelings, and new information to work through.





	Eros, and Other Things Felt

Six thousand years on Earth slowly altered the way Aziraphale related to other beings. Most unexpectedly, however, his time outside of Heaven changed his ability to love. Not that he didn’t love from the start. No, he had always had that all-encompassing love for others, an agape love. Even as he disagreed with humans on many things, he loved them all. Humanity was a wonderful, intricate, amazing creation, and Aziraphale loved and appreciated the group as such.

As he spent more time around particular beings over the years, he developed another type of love. The philia love that allowed him to develop more human-like relationships. There were acquaintances, compatriots, old friends, day to day familiars… so many different and differently complex relationships! He had new, satisfying feelings towards these beings in his life. Aziraphale was happy to increase the group of people he found himself living alongside. From customers to dance partners to the waiters at his favorite restaurants, he had built a network of wonderful and interesting people throughout his life. He mourned when they passed (and they would all pass), but he celebrated their time together. 

It wasn’t until his most recent century on Earth that he discovered another kind of love, and with it, a new kind of pain.

Crowley held out the briefcase. “Little demonic miracle of my own.”

It was at this point that the third type of love Aziraphale would feel ripped through him like a wave of electricity. Surrounded by the rubble of a bombing and the obliterated Nazi bodies, the angel’s spirit swelled with a new kind of love: eros.

Aziraphale walked behind Crowley to the nearby Bentley. He clutched the briefcase tightly, as if it alone could keep him from discorporating. Crowley was a demon, an enemy, albeit one the angel had an efficient working relationship with. Why, Aziraphale would have even gone so far as to include him when discussing the individuals that rounded out his circle, his little tribe he had developed on this planet. 

“Bookstore?”

“Yes, please. Thank you, Crowley.”

Crowley made a noise to relay his indifference at his gesture. 

Aziraphale’s mind began to race. Crowley had been there since Eden. They had worked together for thousands of years, witnessed both horrors and high points together (through different viewpoints, of course). At most of the major events in the angel’s time on Earth, there was Crowley, making light of their assignments and joining him for meals. 

The car ride to the bookstore had been long and mostly free of conversation. Aziraphale looked at Crowley, who had begun fidgeting with the radio and tapping his fingers nervously over the steering wheel. 

Demons don’t love, he thought. But he has been here as long as I have, so what if...

Aziraphale wanted to be sure. Saving these books could have been a calculated gesture, an act that would demand reciprocation in the future. However, if it wasn’t, then what other reason would there be for the miracle? He took a deep breath, and put his hand on Crowley’s shoulder.

“I appreciate you saving me back there. I do not know how I could ever repay you.”

As the demon shrugged the act off as part of their arrangement, Aziraphlae could feel Crowley’s emotions. He was awash in confusion, impulsiveness, and a chaotic energy that blanketed everything he felt. There was also pain and hurt, enough to cause the angel to feel an unpleasant sensation in his gut. But there was something else.

“You aren’t any good to our arrangement if you’re blasted back to Heaven, you know.”

Aziraphale nodded in response as he uncovered Crowley’s final emotion. Buried under all of the mess and cynicism of the demon was love. Love for an existence Crowley enjoyed here. Love for a life that held some sort of perceived value after his fall. 

And there was a love for Aziraphale. An unreciprocated love that was tied up in bonds of self-hate and unworthiness.

The angel retreated his hand.

“No, my dear, I don’t suppose I am.”

Crowley gave the angel a side glance. Did the demon know that he knew? Not another word was spoken until they arrived at the bookstore.

“Join me for a drink?” 

“Mmm, not tonight, Angel. See you around.”

Crowley drove off, ripping out pieces of the angel’s heart as he left.

After the failed Armeggedon and the outwitting of both sides just days earlier, the two sat at the bookstore. They drank champagne until the wee hours of the morning. Alcohol and general survival mode eliminated all pre-existing filters in their conversation.

“You loved me in 1941, but never acted on it.”

“What was there to act on? I was a demon in love with an angel, and it was awful.” Crowley’s blatant honesty almost derailed Aziraphale.

“Was it me? I treated you poorly?”

“No, Aziraphale, it wasn’t that at all. And why are we doing this now?”

“Because I’ve spent the last few decades worrying about what to do with these feelings, and this information!” The angel poured more champagne into their glasses. “Now, I have little else to do but enjoy my bookstore and obsess about our feelings, feelings we wouldn’t even have if we hadn’t been on Earth so long.”

“And now we are here forever.”

Aziraphale retrieved a couple of sugar cubes, plopped them into his drink, and sat back down next to Crowley on the sofa. 

“So, what do you feel now?”

“Why don’t you pull it out of me like you did in ‘41?”

“First of all,” the angel began to protest before he stopped himself. Of course Crowley knew what he had done. “Well, would that be easier?” 

Crowley muttered under his breath angrily. “Sure. It isn’t like I can do the same, but by all means, take what you want.”

Aziraphale took his drink and placed it on the table as well. “I can change that, if it helps.”

“It doesn’t. I’m all you have left. It doesn’t matter now, because I will never know what you really felt. Not really, Angel.”

Defenses were up and tempers began to flare. Being intoxicated was not the ideal state for what was about to happen, so Aziraphale miracled them sober. This annoyed Crowley further. He grumbled a protest before Aziraphale placed the demon’s hands on his face. The angel then placed his own hands on Crowley’s face. He could feel the conflicting thoughts of his friend.

“Close your eyes. This might sting a bit.”

With that insufficient warning, Aziraphale opened up thousands of years of emotions between them. The intense patterns of emotions sent a shockwave through the store. Books flew off the shelves as their pages incinerated. Ashes from lost knowledge whirled about and scattered over the floor and furniture. Glass shattered, alcohol ignited, and the couple sat in the center of a fiery war zone.

Crowley tried to pull his hands from the angel’s face in fear, but Aziraphale grabbed them and held them fast. He rubbed his thumbs over them to reassure Crowley, as the pain and trembling of the demon began to reach their zenith. The heat mounted around them as the two of them shared everything. Every lonely thought. Every bit of abuse from their superiors. Every doubt, every inadequacy, and every yearning. When the scenes came to the present, Aziraphale go of Crowley’s hands.

Eyes full of tears and throats full of sobs, they glanced around the store. The flames licked their feet and burned the fabric of the sofa they sat upon. Aziraphale snapped his fingers and returned everything to its former state. .

He turned his attention to Crowley. The demon was broken. Centuries of not being allowed to feel things were suddenly undone. As Aziraphale pulled him into a worried embrace, Crowley began to violently shake as he left tears on that angelic shoulder. It would be hours before either could speak.

Crowley pulled back first. “We’re a mess.”

“I’m sorry if that was painful, but I had to let you know. I had to be honest, and hope that would erase your doubts.”

“And that was more than a little sting!”

“I didn’t want to worry you before it started. I’m sorry!”

They sat quietly, looking at one another for a few minutes as each struggled to capture whatever composure they could.

“What is there to say?”

The demon shook his head. “Nothing really. Everything kind of got forcefed, right?” 

“So much for mystery, I guess.”

Aziraphale leaned back onto the sofa, his eyes locked into the ceiling. He had gone too far and revealed too much. Crowley was overwhelmed, and who knows what they would do now with all of this raw information. His honest revelations may have had the opposite of their intended effect. Now he had to worry about a new problem: was this too much for Crowley? What would the demon do now?

He didn’t have to worry long. Crowley stood up and walked over to where the bookstore’s liquor cabinet was hidden. After reviewing the choices, he selected a select amontillado that he knew Aziraphale had been saving for a special event. He held it up, and the angel nodded in response.

“I am going to need something a bit stronger than champagne to discuss this any further.”

Crowley poured the two of them a glass, and held up his own for a brief examination. Then, he leaned in for a toast.

“Here’s to us. Whatever that looks like, whatever happens from here out, here’s to two idiots that have forever to figure things out.”

Aziraphale raised his glass in turn, smiling sweetly. “To us. Cheers, my love.”

“Cheers, Angel.”

**Author's Note:**

> These two idiots.
> 
> Feedback is always welcomed.


End file.
